I got out of bed early today. Around 04.00 utc I sat in my shack but found no sign of FT5GA. Nowhere heard and the cluster didn’t reveal any activity. NOT ACTIVE? A crying shame. About 07.00 utc I see a spot on 15m so I listen but don’t hear a thing. I’m starting to get a bit annoyed by these fellows. Before you tell me it’s because I didn’t work them: I just did. Too bad it was an SSB QSO on 20m. I need them in CW.
While typing this, I am listening on 15m CW. The signal is quite good. The operator isn’t.
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He just works Japanese calls and signs ‘TU’. How can I tell it’s FT5GA? Maybe because the cluster tells me? WHY DOESN’T HE SEND HIS CALLSIGN every few QSO’s?
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He’s listening up. How can I tell he’s working split mode? Maybe because the cluster tells me? WHY DOESN’T HE SEND ‘UP’ THEN?
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He seems to be working Japan only right now. How can I tell he’s working Japan only by choice and that it is not a matter of propagation? Maybe because the cluster tells me? WHY DOESN’T HE SEND ‘QRZ JA’ then?
All this is just poor operating to me. To make things worse he gets louder and then sends “QRX 1 HOUR”. I’m not the guy to tell bad things about DXpeditions. About the EU zoo and QRM’ers in contests yes, but in general I respect DX operators. They go to remote locations at their own expenses trying to give us some nice DX. Remember the German crews who went to far away places recently? Much further away, much more difficult path from here, yet workable in a breeze on many bands with better signals. Propagation wasn’t better then than it is today. But since this is my personal soap box I tell you that I don’t like the FT5GA operating style.
I did work T2G (=PG5M) for a new one on 20m CW. Right over the pole and very loud. Sharp operating. Listened to ZL7/N7UO on 40m CW but didn’t work him because I QSY’ed to 30m where I worked TO7RJ. Hey wait a minute, he’s on Mayotte which is close to Glorioso. He was loud and easily worked. So why doesn’t FT5GA show up there?
The cluster (yes I read that thing but do not rely on exclusively) showed a KL7 on 40m SSB. He was loud (S7-S9) but he was working simplex and the EU’s kept calling and calling. Funny. If everyone keeps calling and calling, who’s going to hear and work the DX then? A ZL4 a bit higher up was logged on first call. He gave me only ‘45’ while he was ‘59’ here. He said there was a storm over ZL which created some noise. I also heard a VK7 and a K5. These DX signals gave me hope so I called CQ myself on 40m phone. Which I never do. But apart from some EU nothing was worked. Too bad. I’d like to work some 40m DX on SSB too for a change. Maybe this year SB40 and no SB20 in CQ WW SSB?
ADDED 17.30 utc: listening to FT5GA on 17 CW, fair signal. He’s working EU for some 10 minutes when he works one or two Americans. Then he realizes ‘NA NA ONLY NA’. Now it’s counting down until the band closes for EU… I really start to hate those guys! Start to? Actually… When I typed the first part of this item this morning, I wrote a very unkind part about the FT5GA team, which I decided to delete. It was about working JA only at that point. Too bad I deleted that because it applies now more than ever before with this ‘NA only’ farce.